The Shocking Truth (and Lies) about ESD

Paul McNamara’s recent post titled ‘The Shocking Truth (and Lies) about ESD” on the Network World‘s documents some stories of damage caused by ESD.

One notes:

I once zapped my home’s thermostat when I was attempting to change the temperature setting. The LCD went blank and refused to come back on. I ended up replacing the unit.

While the damage caused by ESD can seem like a mystery, the basic practices of controlling ESD when handling ESD susceptible items are pretty straight forward.

  • Establish an ESD Protected Area. It can be one bench or a whole facility.
  • Ground all conductors including operators.
  • Use a dissipative grounded surface for ESD susceptible products to be placed on if needed.
  • Remove all non-process essential insulators from the ESD Protected Area. Use ionization to control charges on process essential insulators.
  • If an ESD susceptible item needs to be removed from the ESD Protected Area, place it in a shielding bag or storage container that forms a faraday cage.

Desco has been making products to be used in an ESD Protected Area for over 30 years.

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